Egypt’s pro-democracy national coalition issues an important statement Saturday November 16 calling for a broad dialogue to end the ongoing crisis in the country, while stressing that constitutional and electoral legitimacy must be restored.

The Alliance is endeavoring to end the military coup for the following reasons:

▪ Hoping for a better present and a brighter future for Egypt.

▪ Preserving this homeland’s resources.

▪ Avoiding strife and sedition among this country’s citizens.

▪ Blocking any possible foreign intervention.

▪ Realizing the objectives of the January 25 Revolution by building a modern democratic state.

▪ Building a great future worthy of the great Egyptian people and this glorious homeland.

This coup has shaken the Revolution, the stability of the country and the unity of the Egyptian people. If it succeeds - God forbid, it would set a precedent for military generals to subvert the democratic will of the people whenever it does not meet their whims.

Since this military coup has plunged Egypt in a crisis that no single political party can resolve, it has become imperative that this statement reaches the people - the true stakeholders, so they may see the strategic vision suggested to resolve the crisis, and so they may rally around it to achieve its objectives.

Crisis Course and Consequences

Egypt is going through a deep crisis, exacerbated by the putschist decisions of the July 3 coup. The January 25 Revolution is being brutally aborted, with the return to power of the military regime, under which Egypt suffered for decades of repeated failure, tyranny, corruption, backwardness and subordination. So, today's crisis is less about what some regard as errors by a president or a group, and more about a revolution that has been subverted, a military regime that wants to solidify its power, and political and social divisions used by the counterrevolution to impose its control once more over the homeland and the people, with dubious support from certain regional and international players determined to secure and perpetuate Egypt’s subordination to them.

The Egyptian people revolted on January 25, 2011, to challenge tyranny, social injustice, stagnation, corruption, subordination and savage disregard for human dignity. But the removal of the head of the regime alone allowed the counterrevolution - assisted by the former Supreme Council of the Armed Forces - to pounce on the objectives and gains of the Revolution. Thus, for example, it corrupted and destroyed evidence against killers of revolutionaries, so the killers and regime figures could be found innocent, and so Mubarak would be freed, bringing us back to pre-revolution conditions.

In spite of the obstacles thrown up by the counterrevolution, the great Egyptian people tirelessly underwent five consecutive votes. They approved amendments to the 1971 constitution, defining the transition period, elected two legislative bodies and a president, and approved a new constitution. But the counterrevolution plotted against the lower house of parliament and dissolved it. It deliberately obstructed the work of the Shura Council (the upper house), the constitutional committee and the presidency. When it could not remove them, the counterrevolution plotted with the ministers of defense and interior in July 3, 2013, a coup against the president, his government, the Shura Council and the constitution of 2012, thus overturning the will of the people.

On June 30, 2013, the counterrevolution took advantage of demonstrations by some of those rejecting the policies of the elected president to achieve its own aims through the following:

▪ The generals kidnapped the elected Egyptian President, who neither stepped down nor resigned. Notably, he never issued any kind of decree or decision to authorize the chief of the armed forces to create any ‘roadmap’. This contrasts with the events of February 11th, 2011 when Mubarak stepped down and appointed the military council to run the country (Presidential Decree dated February 12th, 2011). In addition, the referendum of March 19, on amendments to the constitution, gave legitimacy to the council's role in managing the transition period. All this affirms that the coup regime is illegitimate.

▪ The leadership of the armed forces is mired in politics, imposing its vision on the political scene. The army is engaged in internal security work, which could lead to rifts within the army, threatening its integrity. It is thus distracted from protecting Egyptian national security against foreign threats.

▪ Egypt is currently without legislative bodies. Laws are in the hands of the interim president and his government, cutting, pasting and tailoring them to serve the coup and its organizers at the expense of the Egyptian people.

▪ The Egyptian Constitution is suspended, and is being amended by a military-appointed committee loyal to the generals who appointed its members, not to the people.

▪ Coup commanders have exterminated more than five thousand Egyptians - killed, suffocated or burned - and injured more than twenty thousand, for no reason except that they refused to accept their coup d’etat. The leader of the coup and his partner, the minister of interior, still threaten "submission or extermination".

▪ Coup leaders are applying a repressive security solution to their crisis, detaining more than fifteen thousand men, women and children, torturing them in prisons, kidnapping people and holding them hostage, burning homes, and all sorts of other human rights violations. All this restricts political activity and, unfortunately, drags the country towards a whirlpool of violence - rejected and condemned by the Alliance - that poses a grave threat to the stability of Egypt.

▪ Feeding polarization, and deep social and political divisions, within the Egyptian society, threatening Egypt’s integrity and unity.

▪ Following a policy of exclusion and marginalization of the opposition and all those rejecting the coup, not only in political life, but also in employment.

▪ Killing freedoms by silencing voices, closing television channels, preparing blacklists of opponents or those objecting to their criminal acts, using government and private media to incite violence and to deliberately vilify all opponents, describing them as traitors or conspiring demons.

▪ Demolishing justice and exploiting the judiciary; using exceptional measures to support the coup and confront political opponents.

▪ The coup commanders have no qualms about burning churches, mosques and public or private buildings. Nor do they hesitate to kill innocent people for no reason except the demonization of the Islamic parties and all other opponents of the coup, thus winning a cheap victory in their political struggle to have the coup succeed.

▪ The media in Egypt is allied to the defunct Mubarak regime, inciting hatred and running campaigns to mislead, misinform, corrupt the truth and twist facts, not to mention the police force, which has not been purged, that continues to practice vicious repression, illegally, and with no regard whatsoever for human rights.

▪ Egypt has returned to stagnation after a relative revival - during President Morsi's tenure - confirmed by the central bank report after the coup. Economic conditions have deteriorated, with the budget deficit growing, domestic and foreign debt growing, investments dwindling, tourism collapsing, prices rising and basic commodities disappearing, services deteriorating and unemployment rates rising at an unprecedented rate, all of which warn of a great and imminent danger to Egypt’s stability.

▪ Living conditions have rapidly deteriorated, and prices have risen repeatedly - nearly every day, which has affected all classes of the Egyptian people, especially the poor who are the vast majority of the nation.

▪ Under the coup, corruption has a free hand in Egypt, even finds protection - with the return of many Mubarak regime figures and their followers to their corrupt and corrupting roles, with the acquittal of those sharing in their crimes before the January Revolution, and the escape of those who killed or wounded the revolutionaries from any type of legal accountability.

▪ The coup authorities are incapable of reviving Egypt from subordination, nor do they have the will or desire to do so. They stand helpless in the face of Zionist and American insolence. In addition, the deteriorating conditions in Sinai - and the fabricated enmity towards Hamas in Gaza in particular, and the Palestinian people in general - represent a threat to Egyptian national security.

▪ Egyptian water security is under a grave threat with the closing of the file pertaining to the Nahda Dam in Ethiopia after the elected Egyptian President was overthrown.

▪ Inability of the coup regime to manage Egypt's foreign affairs, and its futile attempts to garner international support.

▪ Weakness and regression of the coup regime following the withdrawal of numerous allies, political groups and wide sectors of society. This enhanced the momentum of the coalition rejecting the coup in size, diversity and geographic proliferation, especially among the youth and women.

▪ Coup leaders are facing a revolution of the people they're oppressing by extending emergency laws, instating curfews, killing freedoms and widening arbitrary arrests, in addition to torturing detainees in prisons, kidnapping political opponents, issuing laws that curb freedoms - such as the demonstration law and the law on terrorism - in the absence of a legislative authority, and extending precautionary detentions for unlimited periods.

▪ Increase in the people's demands – for retribution for the martyrs, rights of the wounded and bringing coup leaders to justice, in addition to the return of legitimacy and the reversal of the coup.

Strategic Goals

The Alliance is determined to realize the Egyptian people's aspirations of forming a modern, nationalistic, democratic state to be built with the participation of all Egyptians, with no exclusion or marginalization, according to the following:

1) Striving to realize the aims of the January 25 Revolution of “bread, freedom, social justice and human dignity” in the face of the coup leaders' deliberate plot to systematically subvert the Revolution, since its inception.

2) Returning to a democratic path, the respect of the people's will in deciding their destiny, and ending the military coup and the police state.

3) Realizing stability, transcending the state of insecurity existing in Egypt since the January 25, 2011 Revolution, and beginning to realize true transitional justice.

4) Realizing the atmosphere needed for growth in order to transcend the state of ruin brought about by the Mubarak regime and the counterrevolutionary plots. This is to achieve social justice and bring Egypt to its rightful status.

5) Affirming the Arab and Muslim identity of Egypt, in the cultural sense, as erected by all its citizens, Muslims and Christians alike.

6) Protecting national security, which necessitates the extraction of the army from politics and its return to its barracks, so it may protect Egypt's borders, guarantee the country’s stability and secure its future in the face of external challenges. All Egyptians should work towards its support and cohesiveness.

7) Egypt's international relations must be built upon mutual interests within the guidelines of sovereignty, mutual respect, international responsibility, non-interference in domestic matters, independence of national decisions and working towards regaining Egypt's regional and international stature.

8) Preserving the Egyptian state, the country's unity and the cohesiveness of its people.

Governing Values

To realize these strategic goals and objectives, we are governed by several guidelines and values:

1) Respect of the people's will through ballot boxes, and adopting this as the only way to apply democracy and express this will; this is one of the gains of the January 25 Revolution.

2) Preservation of the rights of the martyrs and wounded, and not side-steping them.

3) Respect of the rule of the constitution and law, while admitting the necessity of a larger consensus regarding the constitution by modifying some controversial articles via a constitutional mechanism.

4) Respect of the right to peaceful demonstration, while condemning thuggery and vandalism; rejecting the current laws regarding demonstrations and terrorism, and all laws limiting freedoms.

5) Respect of the opposition and differences in opinion, while, on the other hand, condemning plots against legitimacy and the great Egyptian people's values.

6) Respect of political pluralism, admitting that Egypt is a nation for all its citizens.

7) The belief that all Egyptian citizens, Muslims and Christians, are partners in building this nation's civilization, and that any progress or revival cannot happen except with the participation of all its citizens, notably youth and women.

8) The belief that the Egyptian army is its strong core and its shield that protects its borders, guarantees its stability, secures its future in the face of external challenges, participates in its development and revival as a national institution that is not above the state, and all Egyptians work towards its support and cohesiveness.

The Alliance affirms its adherence to these governing values, in contrast to the coup leaders who ravaged them in all their actions, starting with the roadmap which was imposed on the people without their consultation.

General Framework to End the Crisis (Determinants and Controls)

1) The Anti-Coup Alliance supports the Egyptian people’s Revolution in rejection of the coup, for the return of constitutional legitimacy and a democratic path, with the participation of all political groups, with no monopoly by any group and no exclusion of any group.

2) The Alliance affirms that nonviolent opposition is the only way to end the coup and return to a democratic path.

3) Despite its support for the Egyptian people's Revolution, the Alliance does not reject any serious and sincere efforts towards a serious political dialogue to bring Egypt out of its crisis, according to the aforementioned governing values, and through a consensus around serving the interests of the homeland.

4) Any serious dialogue aimed at ending the crisis necessitates four steps:

⁃ Providing the atmosphere of freedom needed for the political process, by ending the bloodshed, ending the campaigns of hate broadcast by the media, ceasing detentions and fabrications of accusations, releasing all those detained after June 30th, 2013, reinstating all closed television channels, confronting all thuggery, and securing vital institutions without interfering with the right to peaceful protest.

⁃ Confirming the governing values needed for a dialogue.

⁃ Commencing a serious dialogue to end the crisis.

⁃ Consulting the people, respecting their will, and adopting the principle of honesty and transparency with them as the real stakeholders in Egypt's wealth.

5) Never compromising, relinquishing or bargaining over the rights of the martyrs or wounded.

Conclusion:

Stemming from its firm belief that the solution to the current Egyptian crisis needs the solidarity of all Egyptians in order to realize the objective of erecting a democratic system reinforcing the gains of the January 25 Revolution and ending the military coup, the Anti-Coup Pro-Legitimacy National Alliance invites all revolutionary groups, political parties and national figures to enter a deep dialogue surrounding:

a. The means to exit the current crisis, the way to end military rule, and the preservation of the nation's and the people's unity.

b. An agreement on future arrangements needed to erect a modern, nationalistic, democratic state after reversing the coup, and with the participation of all Egyptian citizens.

May God protect Egypt and preserve it from discord, strife and sedition.